A Comparative Study of the CMT+P Process on 316L Stainless Steel Additive Manufacturing

• Main Authors: Bin Xie, Jiaxiang Xue, Xianghui Ren, Wei Wu, Zhuangbin Lin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: additive manufacturing; cold metal transition; austenitic stainless steel; microstructure; anisotropy; second-phase particles
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/9/3284

Adopting the cold metal transfer plus pulse (CMT + P) process, 316L stainless steel wire was treated with a single channel multi-layer deposition experiment under different linear energy. The microstructures of different regions on the deposited samples were observed by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope, and the element distribution in the structure was analyzed by energy dispersive spectrometer. The mechanical properties and microhardness were measured by tensile test method and microhardness tester, respectively, and the anisotropy of tensile strength in horizontal and vertical directions were calculated. Finally, the fracture morphology of the tensile samples were observed by SEM. Experiment results showed that when the difference between the actual and the optimal wire feeding speed matching the specific welding speed was too large, this led to an unstable deposition process as well as flow and collapse of weld bead metal, thus seriously deteriorating the appearance of the deposition samples. The results from metallographic micrograph showed that rapid heat dissipation of the substrate caused small grains to generate in the bottom region of deposition samples, then gradually grew up to coarse dendrites along the building direction in the middle and top region caused by the continuous heat accumulation during deposition. Tensile test results showed that with the increase of linear energy, the horizontal and vertical tensile strength of the as-deposited samples decreased. In addition, the higher linear energy would deteriorate the microstructure of as-deposited parts, including significantly increasing the tendency of oxidation and material stripping. The microhardness values of the bottom, middle and top regions of the samples fluctuated along the centerline of the cross-section, and the values showed a trend of decreasing first and then rising along the building direction. Meanwhile, the yield strength and tensile strength of each specimen showed obvious anisotropy due to unique grain growth morphology. On the whole, the results from this study prove that CMT+P process is a feasible MIG welding additive manufacturing method for 316L stainless steel.